I am not sure what made me do it. I can usually count on my too kind and loving wife to have some common sense when it comes to my youthful uncontrolled exuberance to do something stupid.

But, she was nowhere to be found or at least her motherly instincts for preserving life were not being exercised with her usual dampening wisdom. So, as oblivious as a 4-H animal, I went to Colorado and went snow skiing.

There are a couple of things wrong with this idea; first is that I am older than I used to be when I swooshed my way down the sloped hills of Alta and Snowbird.

The second is that based on the number of face-plants, I cannot move. I am as limber as a piece of hickory. I am composing this article in my head because I can’t move.

“Help; someone come and get me out of bed.” I finally discovered that I can move both index fingers. Other than that, there is nothing that is not sore, bruised, bent, inflamed, swollen, aching, twisted, contorted, sunburned or otherwise demonstrating that my brain may still think I am 16; but my body is old enough to be covered by the Antiquities Act.

At first, I thought I was paralyzed from the neck down. It’s alleged that I have always been paralyzed from the neck up.

What the heck happened? It took me about 30 minutes to figure out that I could move my two index fingers and blink.

My too kind and loving wife is up and moving about with her usual chipper demeanor and she keeps looking at me.

“Blink if you can hear me.” I blink quickly as I don’t want her to pull the plug. We have talked about this several times and I have given her explicit instructions that if I am somehow not able to physically function any longer she is to the pull the plug.

Yes sir, if I should find myself in that unfortunate situation, I have told her to pull the plug as quickly as a Kardashian divorce.

And just to ensure that she would do it, I told her to bring her sisters along; they wouldn’t hesitate any longer than it would take Mitt to change his position.

Hell, they might even use a pillow to move things along. “Come on let’s pull the plug here and go shopping. He didn’t want to suffer. You know what a sissy he is when it comes to pain.”

Now, I think she knows that I can recover. After all, it was only skiing, and so I am hoping that she doesn’t pull the plug on my electric blanket as I am awfully comfortable if I don’t move.

But she wants to make the bed and clearly I would make a lump in her otherwise perfect arrangement of pillows and shams. I start to panic. I wonder if she might smother me with all those pillows.

Although, she is the love of my life, I have done many things that probably deserve some level of getting even. Perhaps she will just unplug me and then cover my face with a pillow for a few seconds and then gleefully explain, “Just messing with you. Ha Ha. Don’t worry. Blink if you understand me. Are you still in there?”

I could even see her slapping me a few times. “Stay with me Gary. Don’t you die on me yet; you haven’t done your chores. If you are going to die you will just have to wait until this afternoon.” Slap. Slap. I think the last two slaps were just out of spite.

My mind is racing and I wonder, “How can a body hurt so much?”

I am sore in places that I didn’t even know that I had. I am sore in places that I thought the doctors removed.

I want to tell her, “Please don’t pull the plug or leave me …or if you are going to leave would you mind turning on the TV and giving me the remote so I can watch a game. Just put it right there where I can use my working index finger to change channels.”

She rolls her eyes, “Come on it was only skiing. Look I am walking around.”

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